Bus driver sued for allegedly taking boy to his apartment

Published 8:00 pm, Friday, September 25, 2009

By LAUREN MYLO

Times Staff Writer

STAMFORD -- The mother of a 14-year-old boy whose bus driver allegedly brought him back to his apartment instead of dropping him off at home is suing the school district, the city and the bus company for negligence, her attorney announced this week.

Stamford attorney Mark Sherman said even though no one knows what happened during what legal papers call "multiple abductions" by bus driver Antonio Wright, Sherman wants to make sure this situation never happens again.

According to the serving notice, for three or four days in April, Wright kept the boy on the school bus until the route was completed, took him back to the bus company, and brought him home with him via a shuttle that takes bus employees without cars to their homes.

It's unclear what happened during those afternoons, Sherman said, but the mother was unaware her son was at Wright's apartment.

"We know he went over there to 'play video games,' but we don't know if there was sexual abuse or physical abuse or nothing," said Sherman, who said the most alarming thing to him was that other bus drivers on the shuttle as well as the shuttle driver must have seen the boy going home with Wright and said nothing.

"This is not just a case about one rogue driver," Sherman added in an e-mail. "It is about a broken down bus system. How does a middle school student get on an employee shuttle bus without raising any eyebrows, let alone voices?

"This lawsuit will ensure that proper safeguards and protections are put in place so that this will never happen again."

Sherman began civil action on behalf of the Stamford mother and her son this week and expects the lawsuit to be filed within the next month. He said he believed Wright now lives out of state.

Representatives from Stamford Public Schools and First Student said they could not comment on specifics with a pending lawsuit, but the latter confirmed Wright was terminated at the end of the school year after an internal investigation into the matter.

"Par for the course, anytime we'd have something out of the ordinary we'd suspend the driver and conduct a full internal investigation," said Maureen Richmond, a spokeswoman for First Student, who noted they assist local authorities and include a wide variety of interviews with any investigation.

Sgt. Joe Kennedy, head of the Stamford Police Department youth bureau, said the police conducted "a very good investigation" in the spring and served a warrant for Wright for risk of injury, but the court rejected the warrant and the case is closed unless more evidence is found.